Can You Game with a 13 Year Old CPU? Intel Core i7 2600

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This Intel Core i7 2600 is almost 13 years old, However, can it still play games at 1080p in 2023 and 2024? Or should you skip this processor and get something else?

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[ProYamYamPC]

CORRECTION: at 9:07 the 1% low for the i5 12400F system should be 94, NOT 65. Sorry for any confusion.

[RobertFixit]

Funny because I am using the i7-2600 as my daily driver this week while I test extreme budget options. Mine was free in a bundle of office computers.

Keep in mind my previous daily driver was an I5 3rd gen, and I haven't noticed a significant difference.

But, if you consider the price (hardly anything at this point), it is still respectable in 2024.

[IndellableHatesHandles]

While older i7s are pretty good for budget gaming, the fact that they hold the i7 name definitely holds them back. People price them too high because they're i7-branded

[geoman]

I have a PC i built in 2010 with an i7-2600K. Using a Noctua cooler and a 1200 watt Corsair psu, i was able to overclock to 4.4GHz. It runs more than fine today!

[adamsaint]

Great vid. My niece had the i7 2600. Upgraded to the i7 3770 for a net cost of about £20 and it was a drop-in replacement. This was a noticeable upgrade.

[john-ekgv]

still using the 2600k at 4.9ghz with a 1070

[Game_Drive_HD]

If you have a weak processor type i3 2100 and i5 2500 on this motherboard. Then you can install intel E3 Xeon 1270 or (V2) It's a bit cheaper than the i7 2600. It gives the same performance in games. Lower power consumption. Due to the lack of a graphics core inside the processor. You will still use it with your Nvidia and AMD discrete graphics card. The main thing is to look at the specification of your motherboard. Does it support Xeon 1270 V2 processor. Regular Xeon 1270 is supported everywhere. It happens that you need to update the BIOS on motherboard.
Just in case when you change your processor

[jhfgjtjutyiuod]

SandyBridge's special sauce back in the day other than AVX instructions was that you could easily overclock the K version to 4+ Ghz, where it really shone. You can't do that with the locked non K version reviewed here. Also SandyBridge CPU's are stuck on PCIe 2 whereas IvyBridge can do PCIe 3 which can make a difference for GPU's. Before I gave the whole setup away to a friend still tinkering away with a core2duo and a K7 Athlon 2400+ I had a GTX 1080 in my i7 2600K which will handily outperform the Vega card this review used and I used DXVK wherever possible also.

I agree Haswell is better for gaming nowadays, but a 2600 non K like reviewed will make quite a potent non gaming desktop pc for casual users.

[RNG-]

The Vega 56 only comes in 8GB VRAM capacity. Utilizing the software feature HBCC for 16GB doesn't do anything meaningful.

[amehu]

Would love to see tester who actually optimizes games' setting according an old CPU tested.
Like in Cyberpunk you mentioned, low crowd density has effect on CPU performance (and it's not important setting like downgrading game play).
Would appreciate similar settings for other games when testing Sandy, Ivy, Haswell, Skylake etc.

[spg]

i love the frist consumer cpu to feature AVX, 2:13, haha no worries mate small mistake happens to the best of us, also ive noticed that your videos are a bit quiet as of late. Anyway good video cheers

[pomax]

i just upgraded my optiplex 790 to this i7 2600 a week ago from i5 2500

[andrewmcewan]

Late to the party here but sandy and ivy have semi locked multiplyers. You can raise every turbo step by 4. I did that + a 103
5 baseclock to get my 2600 to 4ghz all core.

11% clock increase from the multiplyer
3.5 on top of that for a 14% clock increase from a locked chip :)

Also sandybridge chip sets had a series between b and z the p series. with the core multiplyer unlocked but no sli support (x8/x8 pci-e)

[Carfacts]

Nice video man!
Btw can you make a video about the i5 4th gen

[mx]

AVX back in 2011, not really. Nothing really used AVX back at that time. The reason Sandy Bridge was a leap ahead over Nehalem/westmere is the Ring which is the same reason Zen 2 could not beat those Skylake rehashes like the 9900k in gaming. This basically reduced L3 cache latency further.
However, AVX is the reason a Sandy Bridge 4c/8t CPU is still hanging in there today.

On the other hand Intel did increase the Registers to accommodate AVX, which helped all around.

[Cal]

My i5 2500K is still running. But recently upgraded to a new PC with ryzen 5600

[Mostly_Positive_Reviews]

Good job on the video. It's amazing that the 2600 is still passable today, although not recommended to buy one at all. But, if you have one you can still at least somewhat game on it, which is nice to see.

[jonathanparker]

I was actually considering the i7 2600 because its so cheap and i dont play very demanding games. thanks for this vid

[link]

I still have it in my pc when I installed it years ago

[harddrive]

This just shows how far CPU tech has advanced over the years. The old and perhaps obsolete i7 is only getting half of what the new i5 can get for almost all the games you've tested LOL. It might have been the high end back in 2011, but it is surely pretty much a potato 13 years later. It also has a 95W TDP, which means a space heater for a potato-like performance. But it's still good enough for watching Youtube videos (provided that you have a dedicated GPU that can do VP9 decoding), Microsoft Office, music streaming, and general web browing. I'd like to see how good an i7-6700 non-K can do in today's games.